Pet owners often use a harness with a leash when walking an animal. Harnesses are particularly useful for dogs and other animals that may pull while being walked, as the harness provides a means to take the pressure off the neck of the animal, in contrast to the use of a collar with a leash.
One conventional harness, described by Knight in U.S. Pat. No. 5,503,113 (issued on Apr. 2, 1996), includes a cinch band extending about the forward portion of the animal's torso (chest) with a portion of the band projecting upwardly through a ring for reception of a leash. Accordingly, leash-imparted forces close the cinch band about the animal's chest and a pair of shoulder straps is drawn rearwardly against the animal's shoulders.
Another known harness, described by Brezinski in U.S. Pat. No. 7,165,511 (issued on Jan. 23, 2007), includes a first strap and second strap connected at opposite ends to connectors. A single center chest strap extends between the first and second straps. A flexible restraining strap loops between the connectors for attaching a single ended leash. Thus, when the animal pulls forward, the leash resists oppositely resulting in a decrease in the diameter of the girth strap, transferring the animal's pull to a compression of the rib-cage region of the dog.
Yet another known harness, described by Horgan in U.S. Pat. No. 7,963,256 (issued on Jun. 21, 2011) includes connectors for attaching a double-ended leash. This harness consists of a conventional adjustable dog harness and an attached harness control extension. The harness control extension includes a plurality of straps configured to extend to the hind end of the dog and a motion control cord that is interlaced in and between the conventional adjustable dog harness and the harness control extension. The motion control cord encircles the dog's hind legs and can be tightened around the thighs with minimal force, where such tightening substantially restrains the dog without causing injury to the dog.
A common limitation of known harnesses includes properly adjusting the restraining harnesses of the known art. Proper adjustment of a front-clip restraining harness is needed so that when a dog pulls, the reacting force along the leash causes the animal to turn to the left or the right (depending on which side the handler is walking). However, if the harness is loose, the harness will rotate and the dog will not be redirected. Oppositely, if the harness is too tight, the dog will be uncomfortable and unable to walk normally in a straight line, thus making the too-tight harness useless for training. Rear clip restraining harnesses do not redirect a pulling dog to the left or the right, so such harnesses do not work to control and re-train a pulling dog to stop pulling on a walk.
Further, the known restraining harnesses in the art include a single point of attachment for the leash to the harness. This single attachment point requires proper fitting of the harness to the dog for proper redirecting of the dog when it pulls during a walk, as described above. Moreover, a leash attached to a single location on the harness does not allow for adequate control of the animal's movement. Moreover, the fixed nature of the straps of a typical harness does not allow any transmission of the force of pull on the leash into meaningful guidance for the animal to not pull.
Therefore, there remains a need for an improved training method that utilizes an improved harness. Such an improved harness should de-emphasize the difficulty and need for precise fitting of the harness to the dog and allow for some self-fitting so that expertise in fitting a harness to a particular dog is minimized or eliminated. Further, there is a need for a harness that more effectively redirects the forward pulling of the dog-not by physically turning the dog-by changing the dog's own behavior by constricting movement in the direction of the dog's pull (whether it be forward, left, or right) by placing pressure across the chest to the opposite side to redirect or deter that behavior.